Alt for Norge: The Life of Princess Astrid

Screenshot from @

detnorskekongehus

 on Instagram

An elderly lady sits in a wheelchair silhouetted in the shadows of the palace looking out on the crowds mourning her little brother. In another image, the same lonely figure sits alone beside his casket. A single stone of sadness with rivers of international mourning streaming around her. Alone. The last sibling.

And just days after that, the wheelchair sits empty. Its royal occupant no longer standing tall to give her "Alt for Norge."

Princess Astrid passed away in her sleep at the age of 94 on September 11, 2026, two days after her younger brother, King Harald V of Norway was laid to rest. 

Despite several health challenges in her later years, Princess Astrid remained an active member of the Norwegian Royal Family working almost to the end. She made her last public engagement on May 4, 2026 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Dyslexia Norway just a few weeks after being hospitalized with pneumonia. Ten days later, she was hospitalized again, this time with heart failure and was given a pacemaker. This marked the unofficial end of 75 years of public service. Always full of humor and with a heart for service, Astrid once remarked, "I sit in a chair and stuff but it's my legs that fail...I can be involved with things." That spirit led her to take on as many as 20 official engagements a year well into her nineties.

Photo from the Studio of Ernest Rude from the
National Library of Norway via Wikimedia Commons

Princess Astrid Maud Ingeborg of Norway was born on February 12, 1932 as the second child of then Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Märtha of Norway. She was named for her maternal aunt Astrid, who was soon to be Queen of Belgium (See my post about her, End of a Fairytale); her paternal grandmother Queen Maud of Norway, a former British princess; and her maternal grandmother, Princess Ingeborg of Sweden (See my post about her, A Truly Royal In-Law). As a great-grandaughter of King Edward VII, she was born 18th in line to the British throne. At the time, however, her gender barred her from any claims on the Norwegian realm of her father or the Swedish realm of her mother. Nevertheless, she became a very important princess at a very young age. The death of Queen Maud when Astrid was five, elevated Crown Princess Martha to the role of Norway's first lady. When Martha died 16 years later, Astrid took on the role at the tender age of 22 because her older sister, Princess Ragnhild (see my post about her Death of Princess Ragnhild). She would serve as first lady for her grandfather King Haakon VII and her father King Olav V, until her younger brother Crown Prince Harald married Sonja Haraldsen (read my post about her, A New Kind of Queen for Norway) in 1968.

Astrid's early years were spent in the bosom of a growing, happy family despite the looming clouds of war that were gathering across Europe. When the Nazis brought the war to Norway, the Crown Princess and the three children fled at first to Sweden and then, when their presence grew harmful for Sweden's neutrality, to the United States as guests of President Franklin Roosevelt. King Haakon and Crown Prince Olav led a government from hiding in Norway and then from exile in London, after the Germans set up a puppet regime in Norway.

Astrid and her siblings spent five years of their childhood in the United States, at first in Upstate New York and then in Maryland, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.. She was 13 by the time the war ended and they were finally able to return to Norway. She attended Nissen's Girl School and studied ceramics. Then, Astrid spent two years at Oxford University studying economics and political history, an unusual undertaking for a princess of her generation. However, the young princesses of the 1950s and 1960s were emerging as leaders -- perhaps because there were so many of them compared to the number of princes! Young royal women were being dispatched around the world to represent their nations. 

One memorable tour saw Astrid with her cousins Princess Margaretha of Sweden and Princess (later Queen) Margrether of Denmark on a joing tour across the California to promote Scandinavia Airline Service (SAS) with its new faster transatlantic flights. In addition to some glitzy dinners wearing tiaras, the wildly popular trio of princesses, went to SeaWorld and Disneyland and also visited a different kind of king--King of Rock 'n' Roll Elvis Presley on the set of his film G.I. Blues.

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The only moment of any controversy in Astrid's life came in her choice of spouse. All of King Olav's children married only with the grunting permission of their father: Ragnhild because Erling Lorentzen was a commoner and her former bodyguard and Harald because Sonja Haraldsen was also a commoner. Astrid's choice was potentially more scandalous because her desired spouse was also divorced. This meant more than just a social mismatch; it meant concerns from the Norwegian Church. Only a few years later, Princess Margaret of the United Kingdom had spurned her love Peter Townsend (see my post, An Affair to Remember) for the very same reason. Astrid quietly persisted, despite objections even from her own parish church and finally was given permission to marry Johan Martin Ferner, a businessman and Olympic medalist in sailing. As a consequence, she lost her royal status, becoming just Her Highness, and her royal income.

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Thenceforth known officially as Princess Astrid Mrs. Ferner, she launched into a very happy domestic life. She and Mr. Ferner were married for 54 years until his death in 2015. The first 11 years of their marriage saw the arrival of give children: Cathrine, Benedikte, Alexander, Elisabeth and Carl Christian.

Publicly, she continued to support the monarch and to take on leadership roles for many charitable organizations. She was especially concerned with social and humanitarian issues, particularly those that related to women. Astrid also was an avid supporter of the arts and athletics. On her 70th birthday, Norway recognized her long service to the country by granting her an honorary pension.

Embodying the wartime mantra of "Alt for Norge" (All For Norway), Princess Astrid is the only member of the Norwegian Royal Family to have lived through all four reigns of the modern Norwegian monarchy, those of her grandfather Haakon VII, her father Olav V, her brother Harald V, and. for a few days, her nephew Haakon VIII. She was one of the last surviving great-grandchildren of Britain's King Edward VII--the others still living are The Duke of Gloucester, The Duke of Kent, Prince Michael of Kent, and Princess Alexandra Lady Ogilvy.

More personally, she is survived by her five children, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, none of whom bear royal titles or undertake royal duties.

Princess Astrid, at the heart of the Norwegian Royal Family,between the then
Crown Princess & Princess and the King & Queen on the 85th birthday in 2017.
Photo by Marten Brun, The Norwegian Royal Court

More About Astrid
Did Princess Astrid of Norway Die of a Broken Heart? on Tatler
Heartbreak as Norways's Princess Astrid Dies on Hello!
Norway: Princess Astrid Mrs. Ferner's 90th Birthday on Dag Trygsland Hoelseth
On Call for Norway Throughout Her Life on the Norwegian Royal House
Princess Astrid, Mrs. Ferner on Royal Musings
Princess Astrid, Mrs. Ferner on Unofficial Royalty
Princess Astrid of Norway Has Died on Royal Watcher
Princess Astrid of Norway Dies Two Days After Her Brother's Funeral on Royal Central
Princess Astrid of Norway, 94, Is the Picture of Dignity on Tatler
Royal Wedding Dress: Princess Astrid of Norway on Queens of England
Working for Norway Throughout Her Life on Royal Musings

A New Kind of Queen for Norway

Photo from Norwegian Royal Household

With the death of King Harald II of Norway in 2026, his wife Queen Sonja made history. She became the first Dowager Queen of Norway since Queen Margaret of Denmark outlived King Haakon VI Magnusson in 1380. (Of course, Margaret asserted her own authority, eventually ruling as Queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. For her story, see my post The Pantsless King.) For the next 500 years, Norway was ruled by foreign kings in union with Denmark and/or Sweden. When it finally gained its full independence from Sweden* in the early 20th Century, Norway voted to make Prince Carl of Denmark its new King. Carl adopted the name and title King Haakon VII and renamed his toddler son Olav, in tribute to Norway's earlier history. 

Carl/Haakon's wife, however, did not change her name. Having been born Princess Maud of Wales, youngest daughter of Queen Victoria's heir, she became Queen Maud. In 1905, the small family of three was welcomed to their new homeland with great fanfare, in large part because when Haakon was offered the crown, it was he who insisted on a plebiscite to confirm the people's opinion.

Maud and Haakon were first cousins, both grandchildren of King Christian IX of Denmark, and had strong ties to the Danish Royal Family. Maud's heart, however, remained tied to Britain, where her father had ascended the throne as King Edward VII in 1901. She maintained a grace-and-favour house on her father's Sandringham estate called Appleton House and visited frequently, even maintaining her charitable roles there. Somewhat introverted, she did not necessarily enjoy the public role of being a queen, but she had learned a few things from her elegant mother, Queen Alexandra: when in doubt, layer on more jewels! Her regal appearance helped to solidify the new monarchy's place.

Queen Maud and King Haakon VII

by Peder O. Aune via Wikimedia Commons

Another attribute Maud gained from her active parents truly connected her to the Norwegian people. She loved sport, particularly the winter sports like skiing that are innate to everyone in Norway. She was also a superior horsewoman. During World War I, while Norway maintained a neutrality that leaned heavily in favor of Britain, Maud, like many royal women of the day took an active role in relief efforts. However, she was not afraid to push against tradition either. In fact, she was one of few royal women to engage with edgier social subjects, even supporting a home for unwed mothers.

Maud helped establish the traditions and homes of the Norwegian Royal Family in line with those of her home nation. Even though her parents and and all of her siblings had passed away by the mid-1930s, she was still welcomed warmly by her nephew, King George VI. During one of her regular visits, she grew very ill and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. King Haakon dashed from Norway to be at her side as she underwent a surgery that successfully removed the tumor. Nevertheless, the weakened queen's heart failed and she died on November 20, 1938 just days before her 69th birthday. Her body was returned to Norway on a British naval flag ship and she became the first royal to be buried at Akershus Fortress in Oslo since the 13th Century. King Haakon survived her by more than 20 years but never remarried.

Martha and Olav in 1929

by G. Hård from the Norwegian National Library

via Wikimedia Commons

Instead, their daughter-in-law, the former Crown Princess Martha of Sweden became Norway's first lady. Martha and Crown Prince Olav were second cousins, both great-grandchildren of the prolific King Christian IX of Denmark. Martha was a granddaughter of Sweden's King Oscar II, who had also been King of Norway at the time that Norway gained its independence. As children of a younger son of the king, Martha and her siblings grew up in a more casual royal upbringing. Their parents even made sure their three daughters learned marketable skills -- cooking, childcare, first aid -- just in case they needed to make a living or become homemakers one day. As it happens, Margaretha married Danish Prince Axel, Astrid married King Leopold II of Belgium (read my post about her End of a Fairytale), and Martha married the future Norwegian king. Amazingly, all three of these elite marriages were also genuine love matches.

Olav had been slipping quietly across the border to visit Martha in Sweden without the public or the media taking notice. In 1928, they traveled separately to Amsterdam for the Olympic Games. Having won a gold medal in sailing, Olympian Olav proposed and Martha happily accepted. The engagement was finally announced in early 1929 to great public joy in both countries. Their true love match also symbolized "healing" for the two nations that had separated when the bride and groom were very young. Their wedding in March 1929 was the first royal wedding in Norway in over 300 years. 

The couple quickly set up nursery with Princess Ragnhild arriving the next year and Princess Astrid two years after that. Their last child and only son, Crown Prince Harald was born in 1937. In public, Martha assumed the usual round of royal duties with public appearances and charitable works, but she added something new to her repertoire: public speaking. Very few royal women gave speeches at that time, but Martha's natural grace and confidence were well-suited to the task. 

Martha and Harald with their children
(from left) Astrid, baby Harald and Ragnhild

by Anders Beer Wilse from Norwegian National Library
via Wikimedia Commons

As dark clouds were gathering in Europe, the couple was sent to the United States to shore up American support for the small nation. Martha and Olav built solid friendships with President Franklin Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. They also toured through areas where many Norwegian immigrants had settled, strengthening the ties back to the homeland. These connections were to be critical in the years ahead. 

Once again intending to remain neutral, Norway was forced into World War II when Germany invaded in April 1940. Martha and her three young children were rushed to the Swedish border by car and on foot because the train had been bombed the day before. Traveling incognito, they were denied access when they could not produce their passports. Princess Astrid, who was eight at the time, recalled that her mother took control and ordered their driver to smash through the gates. King Haakon and Crown Prince Olav set up a operations at a secret location in Norway and then later narrowly escaped to London, where Olav's cousin King George VI allowed them to establish a government in exile.            

Martha's presence in the officially neutral Sweden soon became diplomatically problematic. Martha's recently acquired friend offered a solution by inviting her and the children to come to the United States. He sent an American transport ship to pick them up from a Finnish port and bring them across the Atlantic. They initially stayed in the White House. Many speculate that the President and the Crown Princess had a romantic relationship. Whether true or not, Roosevelt certainly admired her and valued her opinion. Her presence in the U.S. brought many benefits to Norway, including a U.S. built submarine, which she christened. When not advocating for Norway with the U.S. government and wealthy Norwegian-Americans, Martha was active with the Red Cross.  

After the war, the whole family was reunited in Norway following five years of separation. The Norwegian people welcomed them all with great pride and affection. By then in his 70s, King Haakon's health was steadily declining leading Olav and Martha to take on even more responsibilities. However, the king was not the only one ailing. In 1947, Martha had returned to the United States to undergo back surgery and received a blood transfusion contaminated with hepatitis. That illness eventually caused her to develop cirrhosis of the liver. She died at age 53, two weeks after their 25th wedding anniversary and four months before the birth of her first grandchild. She was the second modern royal buried at Akershus. Olav survived her by nearly 37 years and like his father, never remarried. He became King Olav V upon his father's death in 1957 and reigned until his own death in early 1991. Norway had no queen for more than 52 years from Maud's death until Olav's when King Harald V succeeded with Queen Sonja at his side. 

Sonja and Harald in 1968
via Wikimedia Commons

Their road to the throne together had not been an easy one, however. Sonja Haraldsen had been born among the "common" people. Her father was a clothing merchant. She studied accounting and fashion and helped out in the family business. The couple met through common social connections and quickly fell in love in their early twenties. King Olav, a descendant of generations of royal-to-royal marriages strongly objected to an unequal marriage for his heir. (See my post, Unequal Marriage Equals Happy Marriage?) He actively intervened to prevent them from marrying but Harald persisted; he would not consider anyone but Sonja. The media had learned of the romance however, making Sonja the "Waity Katie" of her generation. She kept engaged with her work and even completed an undergraduate degree in English, French and history at the University of Oslo, where her granddaughter Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra enrolled in August 2026. After nine years, Harald's obstinence finally caused Olav to relent. Better an unequal marriage than an end to the royal dynasty. 

Sonja and Harald were married on August 29, 1968 and the new Crown Princess soon became a very popular first lady for her father-in-law. However, the couple's joy was marred in 1970 with a terrible miscarriage. After waiting so long to marry, were they to be denied a family after all? Finally, more than three years after their wedding, Princess Martha Louise was born in September 1971 followed by Prince Haakon Magnus in July 1973. Their family was complete. 

As Crown Princess and then Queen, Sonja undertook the usual round of royal public and social duties. In 1972, she launched a fund in her newborn daughter's name to help children with disabilities. She established a music competition and a school to promote diversity and inclusion. She is particularly well-known for promoting the visual arts and outdoor sports, particulary trekking. She has also travelled widely representing Norway, becoming the first queen to visit Antarctica, when she went there in 2005 to open a research station in Queen Maud Land. She became a grandmother for the first time in 2003 with the birth of Princess Martha Louise's first daughter Maud Angelica Behn.

In more recent years, Sonja has suffered some health issues, especially atrial fibrillation for which she was implanted with her first pacemaker in 2005. A few months before Harald's death the condition landed her in the hospital again.  

King Harald died one day before their 58th wedding anniversary, making Sonja the first royal wife in modern Norway to outlive her husband. Although she is the first Queen Dowager, she will simply be addressed as Queen Sonja. This moment also marks the first time, one Queen Consort (Sonja) is followed by another, new King Haakon VIII's wife, the former Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby.

*During the period from 1818 until 1905, the Bernadotte Kings of Sweden were also Kings of Norway, although the countries were technically separate nations. During this time period, Queen Desideria became a Dowager Queen in 1844 and so did her daughter-in-law Queen Josephine in 1859. Desideria was crowned Queen of Sweden but never of Norway. She visited Norway but never lived there. In fact, she spent much of her time in her native France. Queen Josephine spent significantly more time in Norway during her husband's reign. After his death, however, she largely withdrew from society, living quietly in Sweden. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

A Steady Princess in the Heart of Tempests

Edition Moos, Karlsruhe Nr. 3640

via Wikimedia Commons

Theodora's life had always been unstable, riddled with upheavals and tragedies. She had lived through the Balkan Wars and the First World War. She had sheltered in the cellars with her mother and sisters when the French had bombarded the royal palace in Athens. Her family had been forced into exile not once, but twice. Her grandfather had been assassinated when she was just five years old. Her father had narrowly escaped a death sentence for treason when she was a teenager. Her beloved mother had been sent to a sanatorium after claiming she was married to Jesus.

This wasn't even the first time an entire branch of her family tree had been obliterated in a moment. When she was still a girl, her mother's cousin Alexandra had been brutally murdered with her husband and all of their children, the youngest just two years older than Theodora herself. The next day, Alexandra's sister met the same fate.

But this family annihilation was worse. Maybe it wasn't as brutal. It wasn't intentional. It wasn't political. It was an accident. But that was not the worst part yet. This time, it was Cecilie. Her little sister. Her playmate. Of the four daughters of Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenberg, Princess Cecile was the one who sparkled, whose bright personality found a way to shine despite all of the hardships they faced, while Princess Theodora was the quieter one, who stood back and tried to help keep everyone together. 

Theodora was at home at her husband's ancestral castle, Salem, in Germany on that cold, cloudy November day when the news was delivered by telegram. Twenty-six-year-old Cecilie, her unborn child, her two little boys, her husband, her mother-in-law and their pilot all killed in an instant when their plane inexplicably crashed.

In that terrible moment, perhaps Theodora thought back to those glorious but stressful days when she and her sisters, the exiled Princesses of Greece, had made their debut in London society as the penniless relatives of the British Royal Family. (Their mother, after all, had been born at Windsor Castle under the eye of her grandmother Queen Victoria.) The girls and their baby brother, Prince Philip, who was 15 years younger than Theodora, bounced between a quasi-stable existence in France to "visit" various relatives from Romania to Britain to Germany, where their mother was ultimately confined. 

Princess Alice with her four daughters

 from the Royal Collection via Wikimedia Commons

And, it was in Germany, that all four sisters found their husbands. The two youngest married first: Sophie to Prince Christoph of Hesse in 1930 when she was only 16 and Cecilie a few months later to Christoph's cousin Hereditary Grand Duke Georg Donatus of Hesse. Two months later, oldest sister Margarita, age 26, Hereditary Prince Gottfried of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.

A month after that, Theodora was the last to marry when she wed Berthold Margrave of Baden, and moved into Schloss Salem. Within six years, the couple had three children: Margarita, Max, and little Ludwig, born just eight months before the Hessian plane crash. Ever dutiful, Theodora continued to maintain strong ties of her family. She traveled frequently to visit her mother at the sanatorium. With their mother institutionalized and their father living a playboy lifestyle in Paris, it was Theodora who invited their baby brother Philip a home with her growing family as Schloss Salem.

Theodora and Berthold were patrons of Philip's first school there, Salem School, which had been co-founded by Berthold's father and Jewish-German educator Kurt Hahn. With the Nazis' rise to power, Hahn relocated to Gordonstoun and Philip followed him there, while Berthold maintained the school at Salem. While her brothers-in-law voluntarily joined the Nazi party, Theodora's husband was less enthusiastic about the new regime. When war came, he did his aristocratic duty serving as a cavalry officer. He was injured early in the war and returned home to Theodora and the children. Theodora spent the war volunteering with the Red Cross and helping Berthold run their estates and raise their children.

The rest of her family was flung across the Europe. Philip, now grown was actively serving in the British Navy, actively fighting against her surviving brothers-in-law in the German army. Their father was on the French Riviera, while their mother, having returned to stable mental health was living a nunlike existence in Greece, where she was risking her life to protect Jewish people from the advancing armies.

Berthold was able to maintain the school's independence, but he could not fully protect it nor all of his domains from Nazi control. The school's main operations were closed in 1941, and the Nazis used the castle grounds as a forced labor camp for Polish prisoners. With the defeat of the Nazis, the French occupied the area and forced the remaining school program to be closed due to the Nazi influence. Before the end of the year, the French occupiers had been convinced of the school's true intent. In November 1945. Schule Schloss Salem was reopened under the original educational philosophies instituted by Kurt Hahn and Berthold's father. It continues to operate today. In addition to the school in Gordonstoun, Hahn went on to found Outward Bound and United World Colleges, which has been attended by many of the 21st Century's young royals.

by Philip de László via Wikimedia Commons

Although the turbulence of the war had subsided and normalcy eventually returned to Salem, Theodora's family heartaches continued to arrive at regular intervals. First, she lost her father not long before the war ended, not having seen him for years. Then, in 1947, the joy of Philip's wedding to the future Queen of the United Kingdom was denied to the sisters and their families. Despite a close bond between the prince and his sisters, the specter of the war with Germany was still too fresh to allow them to join him and his bride in the Abbey. Saddened and depressed and by then suffering from heart problems, Theodora was able to gather with her sisters and other univited relatives for their own celebration. They later received detailed written descriptions from their mother and from their cousin, Princess Marina of Greece, who had married the bride's uncle, Prince George Duke of Kent. Within a few years, things had settled enough for Theodora to be invited to the coronation when Philip's bride was crowned Queen Elizabeth II.

In the meantime, the restoration of the Greek monarchy under her cousin King Paul led to many invitations to royal occasions in her birth country. As her children grew into adulthood, the Badens' popularity across the royal families of Europe led to even more invitations that eventually yielded stronger family connections: their daughter Margarita married Prince Tomislav of Yugoslavia in 1957 while their oldest son Max married Archduchess Valerie of Austria in 1966. A year later, the youngest son Ludwig married Princess Marianne of Auersperg-Breunner.

Sadly, Berthold did not get to witness their sons' marriages. Theodora had lost him quite suddenly in 1963 when he died while driving home with Ludwig. Without Berthold at her side, Theodora withdrew more from public life, remaining at Salem. She often struggled to speak or to walk. Her ongoing heart issues were exacerbated by seizures. She survived him only by six years. Her death at age 63 at least spared her one final tragic loss: she was never orphaned as her mother Princess Alice lived on for another eight months after her.

Theodora and Berthold on their wedding day
via Wikimedia Commons

The strong familial connections that Theodora always fought to maintain despite the turmoil of her life also survived her. More than 50 years later, when her brother Philip died shortly before his 100th birthday, the ongoing Covid restrictions of the time severely limited the number of people allowed at the funeral. Only three people were invited to represent his birth family. One of them was Theodora's grandson, Hereditary Prince Bernhard of Baden

More About Theodora
Baden-Greece Nuptials on Royal Musings
The Badens on Royal Musings
Funeral of Princess Theodora, Margravine of Baden on The Royal Watcher
Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark on Alchetron
Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark Explained on Everything Explained Today
Princess Theodora of Greece, Margravine of Baden on Unofficial Royalty
Princess Theodora, Margravine of Baden on The Royal Watcher
Theodora of Greece & Denmark--A Princess without a Fortune on History of Royal Women
Wedding of the Margrave of Baden and Princess Theodora on The Royal Watcher